


True North

by WriteItSmall (scribblemyname)



Series: Comment Fic LiveJournal Stories [211]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Established Relationship, F/M, First Meeting, Friendship, Gen, Morality, can be read as platonic or romantic, partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 20:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4073506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/WriteItSmall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natalia Romanova has a firm moral compass, a sense of what she should and should not do. It swings around patriotism, honor, strength, and success. It points true Red Room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True North

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pr3tz3ls](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=pr3tz3ls).



> Prompt by pr3tz3ls on the LJ Comment Fic community: [Any, any, the problem with moral compasses is that like any other compass, they don't always point north.](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/588781.html?thread=82025965#t82025965)

They train the Black Widows wisely, girls lifted on perfect pointe in a row down the middle of a sun-streaked studio, girls with blades for dolls. Natalia Romanova has a firm moral compass, a sense of what she should and should not do. It swings around patriotism, honor, strength, and success. It points true Red Room.  
  


* * *

  
  
She has no morality after the Red Room, nothing at all. Her upbringing gave her no sense of guilt for killing children and no concept whatsoever of "innocents." There are targets, marks, obstacles, handlers, employers, and other assassins and spies. Her first kill was a little girl her own age. It never crosses her mind that there is something wrong with shooting Drakov's daughter.  
  


* * *

  
  
The Black Widow sneers at the headlines, but Natalia feels a faint stirring of puzzlement at the things they call her for doing her job. The hospital burning was a messy job, no doubt, but it was hardly a tragedy.  
  


* * *

  
  
She's lost and floundering and she wonders which jobs she supposedly shouldn't take. She was a patriot and a national icon once. She's not a villain.  
  
"You could come with me."  
  
"You have a job?"  
  
He has an arrow pointed at her heart, but she has a knife too close to his jugular for comfort, and neither of them really mind holding this conversation under duress.  
  
"Is it a good job?" she asks.  
  
He looks at her puzzled. "Do you care?"  
  
Her brow furrows. She shrugs.  
  
He lowers his bow. She lowers her gun.  
  


* * *

  
  
She fools herself for eight years that her moral compass points true SHIELD, then Coulson says, "Barton's been compromised," in her ear and she knows it points true Clint. She'd give anything, kill anything, fight anything, barter anything at all to get him back.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Love is for children. I owe him a debt."


End file.
